Mathew Carey (January 28, 1760 – September 16, 1839) was an Irish-born American publisher and economist who lived and worked in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

[1] He entered the bookselling and printing business in 1775, apprenticing with the Hibernian Journal, or Chronicle of Liberty, one the most radical newspapers in the country.

In 1778, it published an address to the people of Ireland by Benjamin Franklin, and proposed that the American patriots were fighting for the same rights and freedoms sought by the Irish.

[6] Upon Carey's arrival in Philadelphia, he found that Franklin had recommended him to Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, who gave him a $400 check to establish himself.

[8] He frequently wrote articles on various social topics, including events during the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793, which proved a crisis for the city.

He was a Catholic and a founding member of the American Sunday-School Society, along with Quaker merchant Thomas P. Cope, Benjamin Rush and Episcopal bishop William White.

In December 1798, the leading Federalist paper, the Gazette of the United States, identified Carey as a leading light within the recently formed American Society of United Irishmen,[9] alongside his Market Street neighbor, the publisher of the Jeffersonian paper, Philadelphia Aurora, William Duane, and Theobald Wolfe Tone's confidante in America, James Reynolds.

[10] Against the backdrop of America's Quasi War with French and of the Haitian Revolution (then still under the flag of the French Republic),[11] William Cobbett, linked the association of United Irish exiles to the purportedly levelling tendencies of the emerging Democratic-Republican Party,[2] and of conspiring with Paris to organise slave revolts and "thus involve the whole country in rebellion and bloodshed".

[citation needed] In 1822 Carey published Essays on Political Economy; or, The Most Certain Means of Promoting the Wealth, Power, Resources, and Happiness of Nations, Applied Particularly to the United States.

Throughout his political career in America, Carey supported the development and maintenance of American naval strength, even after joining Jefferson’s Democratic-Republicans in 1796.

Carey’s political realignment occurred shortly before the American ratification of the Jay Treaty, primarily intended to ensure peace with Britain, while distancing America from France.

Focus on the British, known around the world for their naval power, made an influential case for extending the reach of the American navy.

[19] A significant portion of his business papers, as well as a very large number of original copies of works printed and/or published by him reside in the collections of the AAS.